A Moses of the Mormons: Strang's City of Refuge and Island Kingdom

Front matter

PARKMAN CLUB PUBLICATIONS Nos. 15–16 Milwaukee, Wis., May 11, 1897

A MOSES OF THE MORMONS

Strang's City of Refuge and Island Kingdom

I

Following is a copy of a writing found among the papers of James Jesse Strang after his death:

I was born March 21st, 1813, on Popple Ridge road, town of Scipio, Cayuga county, New York. My infancy was a period of continual sickness and extreme suffering, and I have understood that at one time I was so low as to be thought dead, and that preparations were made for my burial. All my early recollections are painful, and at this day I am utterly unable to comprehend the feeling of those who look back with pleasure on their infancy, and regret the rapid passing away of childhood. Till I had children of my own, happy in their infantile gambols, the recollection of those days produced a kind of creeping sensation akin to terror.

My parentage was decidedly respectable. My father is a descendant of Henry de l' Estrange, who accompanied the Duke of York to the new world to conquer the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now the State of New York, and the family has ever since retained an honorable rank, and is now scattered over nearly all the States, and branches of it are found in British America and the West Indies.

Tradition says they originally settled at New Utrecht, on Long Island, but Henry de l'Estrange, before his death, removed to the town of Rye, Westchester County, New York, where some of his descendants remained till since 1840.

Tradition also says that my great-grandfather accompanied the first English expedition to Michilimackinac, during which he contracted a dangerous sickness, that he was sent back for medical treatment, and died on the way from the residence of Sir William Johnson to Albany.

He left two sons, William and Gabriel, who were brought up among their mother's relatives, and by that means became separated from the family. They settled at a very early period at Stillwater, in Saratoga County, New York, and were lost sight of by the Strangs in the south part of New York, and on numerous genealogical trees found in that country the limb breaks off with their names.

My father, Clement Strang, is the fifth son of Gabriel Strang. Coming originally of a Norman stock who have continually intermarried with the Dutch and German families of the Hudson, he partakes (as I do) more of the German type than any other. Counting continually in the male line for ten generations back, our ancestors are Jews, but so large is the admixture of other blood that the Semitic type seems to be quite lost.

My mother is of the purest Yankee stock from Rhode Island, her father, Jesse James, and her grandfather, James James, having left there about the time of her birth, and settled in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York, where they died full of years and honors.

My father and mother are yet living (1855), with a reasonable prospect that they may remain many years. They are both small of stature, my father being only five feet three or four inches, and mother less; of comely appearance, amiable, affectionate, charitable, remarkably industrious, skillful in labor and judicious in business, and unsullied moral and religious character. I have a brother, David Strang, two years older than myself, and a sister, Myraette Loser, five years younger, and it is a great pleasure to know that there has never been a disagreement to amount to so much as a momentary coldness between any two members of the family.

I learn from many sources that in childhood I exhibited extraordinary mental imbecility. Indeed, if I may credit what is told me on the subject, all who knew me, except my parents, thought me scarcely more than idiotic. Several facts remain in my recollection which support this opinion. I well recollect that school teachers not unfrequently turned me off with little or no attention, as though I was too stupid to learn and too dull to feel neglect, and my school fellows did not forget to add their slight.

I doubt not my appearance at least justified this opinion. I remember myself as little disposed to play, seldom cheerful, and scarcely ever taking the slightest interest in the plays of others. Long weary days I sat upon the floor, thinking, thinking. thinking! occasionally asking a strange, uninfantile question and never getting an answer. My mind wandered over fields that old men shrink from, seeking rest and finding none till darkness gathered thick around and I burst into tears and cried aloud, and with a voice scarcely able to articulate told my mother that my head ached.

During the first and part of the second year of my life my father's residence was in that part of Scipio now included in Ledyard. He left for Manlius in August, 1815, when I was about seventeen months old, and with a singular tenacity of memory I kept that place so perfectly in memory that after twenty years' absence I was able to recognize the location in riding through.

To the present time the recollections of my mother carrying me in her arms, nursing me, and conversing with her sister about me, and of the road along which they walked, and the work going on by the roadside, is as distinct as the events of yesterday. It is the brightest of the few bright spots of my childhood, the only recollection of long years not accompanied with a sensation of pain.

Until 1816 my parents remained in Manlius, my father carrying on the farm of Mr. Fleming, an extensive farmer from Maryland, who also kept a very popular tavern on the Great Western turnpike. I have very few recollections of that period beyond an ill-defined but strong attachment to several members of his family and several of the colored people he brought there, though I have seen very few of them in forty years, and none of them in thirty-two. Such are the affections of childhood; at least, they are such with me.

In February, 1816, my father removed with his family to Hanover, Chautauqua County, New York, where he remained twenty years. His first location was two miles northeast of Forestville, and three-fourths of a mile from Walnut Creek, on the east side of the road, at the four corners, but a few years of the latter portion of that period we lived on Walnut Creek flats, in the same neighborhood.

There I grew up, and around that place cluster nearly all the recollections, pleasant and painful, of my childhood and youth.

On our journey I remember Buffalo as a small, straggling village of thirty or forty houses, occupied as taverns and drinking shops; so crowded that it was a matter of favor to get entertainment; where the same low, open, filthy room was used for barroom, dining room and kitchen, and a few hours the latter part of the night accommodated as many drowsy, drunken and tired sleepers as could lie down upon the floor.

From Buffalo we went to the mouth of Cattaraugus Creek on the ice. Father was heavy loaded and obliged to travel slow. There had been a day or two of mild weather; the snow. was melted on the ice and had already thawed many a treacherous opening, and covered with water as the ice was, it was difficult for a stranger to keep the way over the thirty miles of dreary waste of ice without a landmark.

To secure a passage by daylight father got a man who was going with a two-horse sleigh and no load but his wife to take my mother and her two children as far as Cattaraugus. I only remember that the water sometimes came into the sleigh box, that the driver frequently jumped the horses across wide chasms in the ice, and sometimes found them so wide that he dare not cross them and went great distances around, and that my mother was terribly frightened, and hugged my brother and I to her with an almost suffocating grasp.

I have since I was grown up frequently heard her speak of that passage as having terrified her almost to distraction, a terror much heightened by the continual quarrels and mutual profanity of the couple with whom we rode.

We lost sight of father immediately after starting, and next saw him at Mack's tavern, Cattaraugus. The wind got into the northwest the afternoon of the day we started, and towards night one of the worst snowstorms of that latitude came on, obliterating in a few minutes every vestige of track on the ice, filling the air so that a man could not see the length of sled and team, and rendering it utterly impossible to keep a course even for a few rods.

This storm overtook father midway in the lake, about twenty miles above Buffalo. What he suffered and how he survived none can know, only those who have experienced a similar catastrophe.

I only remember that my mother cried incessantly, and ever and anon clasped my brother and myself convulsively in her arms, till three days passed, when he came to us as one from the dead. Several reports of his death had reached us, some by persons who had seen his frozen body. Whether some persons had really perished and been mistaken for him, or the reports. were wholly false, I do not know, but the former is probable.

From Cattaraugus to my father's place in the same town was then two day's travel, though on an air line not six miles. The route was by Sheridan Center and Forestville.

I attended school the following summer where the most moderate qualifications for teaching were satisfactory. There were but two scholars who knew the alphabet, and none who spelled "easy words of two syllables."

From this time till I was twelve years old I attended district school more or less every year, but the terms were usually short, the teachers inexperienced and ill qualified to teach, and my health such as to preclude attentive study or steady attendance. I estimate my attendance during the whole period as equal to six months' steady attendance with health for study.

My parents had good government. Their family were raised without beating. I can remember being very slightly whipped by my father twice and my mother once. My sister was raised without ever suffering chastisement either at home or in school, and my brother's fortune—

[Here the writing ends as if the writer had been disturbed, and never afterward had opportunity to resume the work.]

Copied January 27, 1897.

Chas. J. Strang, Lansing, Mich.

II

In his book on "Ancient and Modern Michilimackinac," Strang refers to "a disaffected family by the name of Hill." The writer became acquainted with a member of this family, Ludlow P. Hill, during the summer of 1896, while sojourning in the picturesque region along the east shore of Green Bay. Mr. Hill was induced, after much persuasion, to give his recollections of the Beaver Island community. Though sixty-six years of age, his memory was remarkably clear, and his narrative was told in a straightforward manner. Mr. Hill is at present a resident of Wonewoc, Wis. Following narrative was transcribed from the notes taken at the time of the interview:

When I went to Beaver Island I was a young man, who had just reached my majority. My family lived in Illinois (Elgin), and it was there that my father became acquainted with Strang and was deeply impressed with his remarkable. powers. Strang induced him to join his Beaver Island colony and to invest his entire possessions there (about $10,000). That is how I came to go there, and all the rest of the family, too. I was the only member of the family who remained outside the Mormon fold, and was the last Gentile on the island. who resisted the authority of King Strang. In fact, I was the last Gentile on the island, but I had to leave, too, for my life was threatened and my stay was made uncomfortable in many ways. It was not merely a secretly conveyed intimation that my departure would add to my personal comfort; I was denounced openly and by name in the tabernacle.

My father found out the charlatanism of Strang soon after reaching the island. Near the southern end of the island (the head) was a splendid property known to the Gentiles as the Cable property, but rechristened Galilee by the Saints owing to the resemblance, fancied or otherwise, of a small lake on the property to the body of water known to biblical readers. This geographical naming in adaptation of Bible places was a favorite one with the Mormons. Enoch was a small cluster of houses near the bay, and west of St. James was a ridge of sand dignified into Mount Pisgah. Lake Galilee was one-fourth mile from the beach and was remarkably deep for an inland lake.

When my father joined the Beaver Islanders, Strang had been carefully nursing his colony for some time, and felt strong enough to assume the airs, if not the title of dictator, as he later did of King. When my father had located, he was informed. that the place he had bought would be managed by another Mormon, who would conduct it for the benefit of the community. He was coolly informed that this other man, who stood close to Strang, had more business ability. To resist the mandate seemed sheer folly to my father, for it meant ruin. Nobody would have bought him out, because no Gentiles would venture into a nest of pirates, as they regarded the Mormons, and the Mormons, of course, would not buy him. out—they preferred to freeze him out. Without their consent nobody could carry on any business. It was the boycott refined to a point of absolute perfection and success. In those days I was hot-blooded and stubborn, and I wasn't going to give up so easily. So I determined to bid defiance to Strang and his crowd. I had secured the appointment of lighthouse keeper and decided to stick to my post at all hazards. The place paid very poorly—I think not to exceed $500 per annum—but even this was coveted by the Mormons, who were determined upon complete control of the island and everything on it. And they made it hot enough for me, I assure you. Had I consented to be baptized and to join the fold, it would have been pleasant enough, but as I have said, there was a grain of stubbornness about me that made me hot-headed and defiant. I need not give in detail the devices that were employed to make my lot far from hum-drum. I will only narrate one instance. Orders came to me from the King's men that under no circumstances must I harbor any Gentiles, or there would be trouble. Early one raw morning there came to the beach in a leaky boat a couple of half-frozen and half-starved fishermen, who had been wave-tossed in a heavy sea for several days, and asked food and shelter.

"It's as much as your life is worth," said I, "to be caught. here, and maybe I would fare as bad if I helped you. I'll give you a bite to eat, though, but you had better not stop any longer than necessary, for the Mormons may be here any minute."

When they heard this I didn't need to hurry them a bit; they didn't even want to stop for something to eat, until I urged them to do so. They had put out into the lake but a short time. when there came in hot haste to the door six or seven of the guard, armed with guns and demanding if I had seen any Gentiles, or if I had given them any comfort or aid. I deemed it prudent to buy safety at the expense of veracity, and they left vowing that if they caught the men, whose boat they had descried from a distance as it was coming to shore, they would make short work of the intruders.

I married a Mormon young woman, and I may say I have never regretted the step. All of her family were Mormons, and they and my father's family (all Mormons except myself) were among those who did not fall into polygamous ways on the island. Yes, we were married under rather unusual circumstances, and I got the best of the King, the deputy King (vice King), the King's council, and all the elders, too. (Mr. Hill chuckled as the narration called up slumbering recollections.) Yes, I'll tell you how it was, and it's the truth, too. The Mormons were always willing to marry a Gentile woman to a Mormon man, figuring that they could bring enough influence to bear on the woman to attach her and her children to the church. But when it came to uniting a Gentile man with a Mormon girl, they were inexorable in their refusal. We knew that, of course, and Cecelia (that's my wife's name) urged me to be baptized and thus overcome the difficulty.

"Cecelia," said I, "I think the world of you, but a Mormon I'll never consent to become, and that doesn't mean, either, that we won't be married. I'll find some other way."

Now, although I was a Gentile, and one whom the ruling powers were only biding their time to get out of the way, I had a good many friends among the Mormons. So I bided my time. I may mention here that Strang, with his usual shrewdness, had, in order to carry out his schemes under forms of law, brought about the organization of the County of Emmet, to include Beaver Island, and thus had control of the whole machinery of county government. Thus he could elect a Mormon sheriff, and arrest people as he chose; could try his prisoners before a Mormon jury, and a Mormon judge would sentence them according to Mormon law. So every one whom he didn't like became an outlaw, of course, for he had no difficulty in trumping up charges. Strang also got himself elected as a member of the legislature, where he could get local laws passed for Beaver Island. When he went to Lansing as a member of the legislature, he left his kingdom in charge of the president of his council. I waited till Strang had gone to Lansing for the winter, and then I proceeded to put my plans into execution. It had been suspected, despite our precautions, that Cecelia and myself were attached to each other, so I went to one of the preachers whom I regarded as friendly—a man. named Aldrich—and asked him to marry us. He looked startled and said he wouldn't think of such a thing. Finally he said he would if I would consent to be baptized. I flatly declined this proposition. Then he said:

"I'll go and see Bacon," (he was the president of the council and his word was law when Strang was away). "I think I can induce him to give his consent."

Aldrich jumped into his sleigh and drove to the King's house. He was gone some time, and when he came back I saw at once that his mission had been fruitless. Bacon had positively refused to consent to the marriage.

It was evident that I must get at it in another way. There was another Mormon elder and preacher—one Savage—whose friendship I had won, and I went to him. I told him the circumstances and asked him whether he would tie the knot for us.

"It would be ruin to me," said he.

Now, I knew that for some time Savage had been disaffected, so I took the cue from that and worked at him till I persuaded him to perform the ceremony secretly. You may be sure that this was no easy matter, either, and I swore by all that was holy that under no circumstances would I betray him as long as there was danger to him in so doing. So after he had given his word, we planned how we would do it.

The young people of the colony had arranged for a party to be given at my father's house on a certain evening, and we arranged that this circumstance should be taken advantage of to consummate our plans. You see we had to plan, for we were watched. It was a cold, clear starlight night. I remember it well, although it was more than fifty years ago. Within the house all was gaiety and noise—the sound of the fiddle, the patter of the dancers' shoes and the laughter of the merry young people. By a prearrangement, Cecelia and two of our friends who were in the secret repaired to a room up-stairs, while I went outdoors. In the shadow of a woodpile near by Elder Savage was awaiting my signal. He cautiously made his way to the house, went up by a rear stairway, and I followed. In that up-stairs room, while below there was playing and dancing and laughter, Cecelia and I were united in marriage. Not a member of my family or of my wife's family was present or knew anything about it. The reason for keeping them ignorant I'll tell you later. Only my wife and I, the preacher and our two witnesses—friends whom we trusted implicitly, and who, besides, would keep still to save themselves from the vengeance of the Church, if for no other reason, were present. The ceremony over, we went down one at a time without exciting comment, the elder making his exit unobserved, and entering the house an hour later as if he had just arrived to take part in the festival of the young people.

That is how we were secretly married. To the neighbors we behaved just as before. Cecelia received the attentions of other young men, and I was devoted to two or three other women. But there was one present whom we couldn't hoodwink. She was afterwards one of Strang's wives. She was a remarkably clever young woman, if she did play me a mean trick. This young woman was well educated. On one occasion when Strang went east on a proselyting tour, this young woman accompanied him as his secretary, dressed as a young man. They visited Philadelphia, New York and other large cities, and the deception of her sex was never discovered. Well, this young woman acted as a spy on us, and by eavesdropping learned the facts about our marriage. She revealed it all to the King's men, and Savage was summoned to appear. He came to me in great alarm.

"We are lost. They know everything," said he. "I am a ruined man."

Now, I had sworn when he promised to perform the secret ceremony that I would protect him at all hazards. So I set my brains to work and I unfolded a plan to him for getting out of the scrape. I had heard that King Strang had on one occasion secretly baptized a Gentile, so I said to Savage: "Tell them that you secretly baptized me before you performed the marriage ceremony, and if they won't accept that sort of a ceremony as valid, plead as justification that you followed the high example set by Strang."

The trial was a long drawn out affair. My parents were summoned. They truthfully said that they were as much surprised as anybody to hear that we were a married couple, not having been present or even apprised as to the ceremony. My brother gave the same testimony, which let them out from punishment. Until Elder Savage's turn came, the prosecution rested on the eavesdropping information obtained by Strang's future wife.

When it came to Savage's turn, he readily admitted having performed the marriage rites, and the drawn brows and black looks of the councillors were not cheerful premonitions of his fate. When he went on to tell, however, that he had not done so until he had baptized me a Mormon, there was a murmur of astonishment. Savage added that in doing so he had not erred, for he had but followed the example of the head of the community, who, of course, could do no wrong.

This was a poser for those who wanted to condemn Savage to the rigors of the Mormon canon. Though unconvinced, they could hardly convict Savage for doing what their own high priest had done; so Savage escaped punishment. He hadn't strictly told the truth, nor had I, but when men's lives. and property are the issue, one doesn't view moral questions from the same standpoint as ordinarily.

But Savage did not feel safe. He secretly prepared for early departure, and early in the spring, with a few followers. who were as discontented as himself with Mormon rule as expounded on Beaver Island, stole away in Mackinac boats. The refugees went to the main shore, building cabins on the site of the town of Charlevoix. Strang was not disposed to permit his prey to escape so easily. His Mormon sheriff summoned a Mormon posse and went after the seceders on pretext of summoning them as jurors. Thus, under cover of law, he could get his subject back to the island, where he could do whatever his vindictive spirit might suggest. Savage, of course, saw through the artifice. When the sheriff's posse appeared at his log hut with the warrant, Savage tore the paper into shreds, threw them under his feet and stamped on the fragments. The Mormon officers then tried to arrest him for resisting their lawful authority. Savage seized his gun, his companions hurried to his rescue with their weapons, and the Mormon officers turned tail and ran. A pursuing volley wounded one of them in the wrist and another in the groin. They managed to put out in their boat, pursued by their now thoroughly aroused assailants, but the opportune appearance of a vessel enabled them to escape by appealing to her captain for protection.

It was evident to Savage that to remain on the mainland opposite the island whence he had fled was to invite annihilation, for he knew Strang would never rest till he had hunted him down. The refugees placed their belonging and families aboard the steamer "Little Columbia," from Buffalo to Green Bay, and arranged to meet the boat beyond Beaver Island, after her departure from St. James. As usual, the steamer put into the harbor at St. James, and the Mormons crowded aboard. The families of the refugees kept close to their cabins and remained unobserved. All went well till one of the Mormons noticed the names on some of the boxes. At once there was great commotion, and the seizure of the vessel was ordered. The captain's promptness in getting out of the harbor prevented this.

In the meantime the male contingent had sailed around to the southern end of the island, and made a stop at my place. They were overjoyed to see me, and we told each other what had happened since last we had met. I proposed to the men a plan for the overthrow of the kingdom. If they hadn't lacked the nerve, the career of the prophet-king and his reign would have been cut short a few years sooner than it was. Near by in the woods were some seven or eight Mormons of the worst stripe engaged in cutting timber. I proposed that we sally forth, pick our men, surprise them and then shoot them down. As fast as others came we could serve them the same way, and if a large force should arrive, we could barricade ourselves in the house and pick off the men at leisure. I knew there were disaffected men in the community who would lead an uprising if they could get a good chance. I believed it practicable to thus overthrow the kingdom. But they wouldn't take the risk. They departed to join their families, and succeeded in doing so. On Washington Island, at the mouth of Green Bay, they made their homes, and some of their descendants live there to-day.

It was not long after this that I left Beaver Island. Events there were becoming rather too warm even for me. To entrap me into his net, Strang had me summoned as a grand juror immediately after Savage and his companions shot his officers. It was the first grand jury that ever met on Beaver Island. There I was placed in the position of voting to indict my best friends for doing something that grew directly out of circumstances brought about by myself. Of course, I didn't hesitate to do so. I knew the birds would be flown, and I didn't propose to fall into the pit dug for me. I saw, however, that it was dangerous to remain where I was, and I received numerous warnings of the fate that lay in store for me. Men had disappeared before, and no one was the wiser. Houses had gone up in smoke and there was no explanation of the origin of the flames. I quietly made my arrangements and silently hied me away.

Strang was in many respects a remarkable man. He was small and spare, but as a speaker he towered like a giant. He was one of the most fascinating orators imaginable, He wore a very heavy beard of reddish tinge, and his hair was red, too. He had dark eyes, that looked at one on occasion as though they could bore right through. They were set close together, under wide projecting brows, from which rose a massive forehead. Add to this a thin hatchet face, and you have a grouping of features that would attract attention anywhere. His oratory was of the fervid, impassioned sort that would carry his audience with him every time. His words came out in a torrent; he could work himself into emotional spells at will, the sincerity of his words being attested by tears when necessary to produce that effect, or by infectious laughter when his mood was merry. He had what is known as magnetism, too, and could be one of the most companionable of men. His influence over his followers was unbounded. He was certainly a man of unusual talents in many respects. Had he chosen to use them for good, he would have left a great impress upon his country. When I was a young lad I heard him in a debate with a Catholic speaker in Elgin, Ill. It was to have been a three-days' debate. The priest brought up a number of newspaper stories to confound his adversary. In reply Strang confined himself entirely to the Scriptures. He so thoroughly discomfited his adversary in the debate that the next evening the priest failed to appear, and the judges awarded the verdict to Strang.